Buildin autocad computer - help

M

Mehen

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 2, 2005
Messages
151
It will be using a 64bit OS.

I must admit I know very little about autocad, so I'm gonna need some help here.

1 - Does it support Dual/Quad CPU?
2 - Do I want lots of RAM, (2-4) or TONS of RAM (8+) ?
3 - Do I need a powerful video card? And if so how powerful?
4 - What about hard drives - big? fast? big and fast? Or does it really matter?
5 - anything else I'm missing...

Thanks!
 
Are you going to be doing 3d, 2d, or both? Also will you be doing alot of rendering?

I have both Autocad 2008 and Revit Architecture 2008. It uses both cores on my dual core pc. I currently have 3gigs of ram, and it uses alot of that, so the more ram, the better. I would suggest over 4gigs if you are doing large projects.

Video Card- If you're doing alot of rendering, a good one is good. I currently have a 8800GT SC, and it works fine.

Hdd- Doesn't really matter.
 
Thanks for the quick reply Adamvk!

I'm thinking along the lines of Q6600, 2x2GB DDR2 (possibly 4x2gb), P35 board (ASUS?), maybe a single 500gb WD.

I sent over an email to ask the guy about 2d/3d/rendering. What about the Quadro/FireGL cards? Are they worth the price? (and why?).
 
Well it is really whatever I can tell them is "worth it" to get. Maybe 2k give or take a LOT ;)
 
Mehen said:
Thanks for the quick reply Adamvk!

I'm thinking along the lines of Q6600, 2x2GB DDR2 (possibly 4x2gb), P35 board (ASUS?), maybe a single 500gb WD.

I sent over an email to ask the guy about 2d/3d/rendering. What about the Quadro/FireGL cards? Are they worth the price? (and why?).
Click to expand...

Looks good to me. And Toaster Oven is correct. For autocad, the 8800 series will be just fine. From my own use with autocad, I would also recommend you get a large monitor.
 
Toaster Oven said:
For AutoCad not worth it. 8800GT/GTS will beat the pro graphics card at a fraction of the cost.
Click to expand...

The gaming cards are typically known as the poor man's opengl cards, but I don't think they'll beat out the equivalent gpu pro cards. Though, they will perform nicely for a fraction of the cost.
 
I believe he has a 24" Dell already.

8800GT sounds good - they are so %^@#in' cheap right now!! Amazing deals out there... If it is not a HUGE difference then I won't bother with the Quadros.
 
Pricing it out, I'm coming in under "budget" (whatever the exact # may be). I think maybe I'll up it to the Q6700 - which isn't even that much anyways.

Basically looks like this:
Q6700, 8800GT, 2x2GB DDR2-1066, ASUS P5K-E, WD 500gb, Corsair HX620 (could probably get away with the 520, but meh), Antec P182, LG DVD-RW.
 
Maybe I'll add in some after market cooling. A TRUE or the Noctua NH-U12P or something.
 
Forget the Q6700. Too expensive considering that the Q9300 is the same price but outperforms the Q6600 by 7% on average. The Q6700 is only a few percent faster than the Q6600.

Also you don't need DDR2 1066 RAM. C2D systems do not benefit from having faster RAM or having the RAM and FSB at anything other than a 1:1 ratio. So all you need is DDR2 800 RAM.
 
Ok, Q9300 it is.
Wouldn't 1:1 be DDR2-667? I'm sure there would be some difference between 1066 and 667...
 
Mehen said:
Ok, Q9300 it is.
Wouldn't 1:1 be DDR2-667? I'm sure there would be some difference between 1066 and 667...
Click to expand...

Yes 1:1 would be DDR2-667. But since the price difference between DDR2 667 and DDR2 800 RAM is pretty small, go for DDR2 800 RAM since it'll allow for a small OC later if you think you need it. And no, there is no difference between DDR2 1066 and DDR2 667 at all unless you're overclocking.
 
is his work important? some kind of backup solutions.....
is he overclocking,if not get an Intel board for pure raw stability.
 
No overclocking, and he will backup to a server (no need for RAID).

I'll check out the Intel boards, I almost forgot about them, but I've heard nothing but good things about 'em.
 
enginurd said:
The gaming cards are typically known as the poor man's opengl cards, but I don't think they'll beat out the equivalent gpu pro cards. Though, they will perform nicely for a fraction of the cost.
Click to expand...


You would think that but it's not always true. Take for example FX 3700 which is based on G92. It's about the same speed as 8800GT/GTS 512MB in AutoCAD (assuming you're able to run PowerDraft driver, lol) though it costs 5x as much. It gets soundly whoomped by 9800GTX at 1/3 of the cost. To beat a 9800GTX in AutoCAD you need to move up to the ultra high end specialty cards like the FX4600/5600.
 
Thanks a lot guys, I think I know what I'm gettin now.

Always great to have a place where you can get good and immediate feedback :)
 
Thats what we aer here for, reason i suggest intel was you can get very basic boards with out all the added bios features and other items that they may never use / could cause issues if someone decides to explore and change something
 
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